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Vanessa George

Who is Vanessa George?

The mother of two described herself to her internet lover Colin Blanchard as a “paedo whore mum”.

George worked at Little Teds nursery in Efford, Plymouth, until her arrest on June 9, 2009 on suspicion of sexually assaulting a number of pre-school children in her care.

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She was also suspected of taking indecent photographs of them and sending them to her online lover, Colin Blanchard in Greater Manchester.

On the face of it, she was a lively, bubbly and popular nursery worker – but beneath the facade was a callous, bullying, paedophile who openly boasted of her sexual conquests with men.

In all she admitted to a total of seven sexual assaults of young children and six counts of distributing and making indecent pictures of children.

She was sentenced alongside Blanchard and his other online-lover, Angela Allen of Nottingham, at Bristol Crown Court on December 15, 2009.

While some colleagues called her "the life and soul of the party" others described her as "horrible".

It was later revealed George would be eligible for parole after December 15, 2016.

A source at Plymouth's Probation Service told The Herald at the time prison was "extremely stressful and debilitating" and for those serving long terms changed people "dramatically" over the years.

They added said: "The chances of George being given plastic surgery to change her appearance is extremely remote – it's not even worth thinking about.

"It's also likely she would be resettled a long way from Plymouth.

"It's almost certain she'll be banned from ever returning, for the sake of her victims."

(Image: Devon and Cornwall Police)

During her sentencing Judge Mr Justice Royce said he wanted the parents and the media to recognise that while he was passing the indeterminate sentence of imprisonment for public protection of seven years, "it is, in effect, a life sentence".

He said the case had caused "widespread revulsion and incredulity" and had "rocked the city of Plymouth" with the shockwaves extending to every nursery school in the country.

Mr Justice Royce explained the devastation George had wrought upon the families of children who attended the Laira nursery, their torment, sleepless nights and nightmares, their tearfulness and distress.

He noted how some children had begun to display “worrying signs which may be symptomatic of sexual abuse” and highlighted both the suffering of her own family and of her co-workers.

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The case was outlined by prosecutor Simon Morgan who explained that Colin Blanchard, the 39-year-old businessman from Rochdale, was the lynchpin of the paedophile ring.

George herself had pleaded guilty in October to seven sexual assaults on young children and six counts of distributing and making indecent images of children.

Mr Morgan went on to explain how George – who had previously cheated on her husband with his best friend – had begun to search for other men online in late 2008.

(Image: John Allen)

He said staff at Little Ted’s noted how she would talk about men and began to speak “dirtier”. She had bought a second “fun” phone which she kept down her cleavage so no-one could see it, becoming “obsessed” with it.

On December 29, 2008, she met Blanchard online via a social networking site called ‘Are You Interested?’

Mr Morgan said messages exchanged between them were signed “Daddy’s Little Princess” and “Daddy”, but as their perversions increased she would proudly boast she was his “paedo whore mum”.

Her insatiable sexual appetite included her contacting men for sex, some of whom she met through other social networking sites.

A work colleague later told police: “She had so many men texting her she didn’t know one from another.”

Another said she “didn’t waste an opportunity to go with men” and that she had become “like a dog on heat.”

Other revelations read out in court – which left her husband with his head in his hands – included her being paid for giving oral sex to a man on Dartmoor and offering sex to a garage mechanic to pay for an MOT.

Mr Morgan said George’s “sexual boundaries had blurred”. She even commented to one father of a boy at the nursery that his son was “well endowed”.

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At the same time she became “obsessed” with Blanchard, she began to distance herself from her own husband and children, leaving mounting household bills unpaid. Despite travelling north in an attempt to meet up with Blanchard, who then stood her up, she still remained besotted with him, telling work colleagues she was preparing to leave her family for him.

When asked about her own two daughters, she exclaimed “they’re evil to me”.

Mr Morgan said the nursery had strict rules about the use of mobile phones at the nursery, with phone cameras being locked in the office. However, the rule became relaxed due to the “unreliability” of the nursery phone, even though one supervisor had confronted George for having a mobile, ordering her to put it away.

The court heard how on both her mobile phones investigators found indecent images of children, categorised from one [the least explicit on the Copine scale] to five [the most explicit]. More indecent images were found on her computer, although not all had been forwarded onto Blanchard.

Mr Morgan was quick to dismiss George’s claims during interview that Blanchard was the instigator, as he explained how many photos sent had comments added by the Efford mother, including “a few more for you baby”, “this one is good” and “two pics for you baby”. Even after Blanchard travelled to Dubai, shortly before his arrest, she sent messages asking whether he wanted any more pictures.

Mr Morgan said he could not read out much of the material exchanged between George and Blanchard as “it doesn’t make pleasant reading”, highlighting to Mr Justice Royce particular comments made by George which “sadly get worse” including an admission that she and Blanchard were “the perfect paedo couple”.

At one stage the judge was urged read to himself another message, where George claimed she wanted to be with Blanchard when he committed a depraved act.

Thousands of texts were exchanged between the pair between December 29, 2008 and the time of Blanchard’s arrest, along with dozens of calls and more than 100 images.

The court heard how the Little Ted’s nursery had closed following George’s arrest, with staff unable to work in other nurseries until the conclusion of the investigation.

In a victim impact statement the nursery owner Angela Chudley said it had destroyed her childcare career “after 30 years without a blemish” and had left her “in financial ruin”.

In mitigation, advocate Nicolas Gerasimidis said George had become “caught up in the false hope” that Blanchard would rescue her from her marriage.

He said George had “lost everything” because of her actions. He said she had lost her family, “her daughters are estranged from her and are likely to remain estranged.

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“She has, in reality, no support from anybody,” he told the court.

An outburst from the public gallery followed his observation that it would “take a long time to rebuild her life”.

He attempted to suggest George had made good on Mr Justice Royce’s plea that she name her victims, although the judge said he found it difficult to accept George was “genuinely not in a position to reveal more information than she has”. It has previously been suggested George only gave partial names to her defence team and then refused any further interview with investigators to clarify the identities of her victims.

To a further outburst from the public gallery, Mr Gerasimidis announced: “For what it is worth she offers her sincere and unremitting apology to the parents of the children she has hurt. She is genuinely remorseful.”

In sentencing, Mr Justice Royce said George’s “voracious” sexual appetite had “plumbed new depths of depravity”.

When Blanchard asked her to take the photos “there should have been a short, robust, Anglo-Saxon answer” to his request. Instead, he said George “chose a darker path. And make no mistake, it was your choice.”

He said George “appeared to revel in sick sexual talk” about what she did to her victims. Her messages to Blanchard were “stomach churning”, he said.

He noted how she would take about eight photos a week, adding: “This was not one isolated incident committed on the spur of the moment – this was wicked, cold, calculated, repeated offending which for any decent person defies belief.”

Mr Justice Royce said the damage George did was “extensive”, causing the closure of the nursery and 20 staff to lose their jobs.

As to her supposed co-operation in naming her victims, he said it was not a mitigating factor, adding “it is what anyone with a drop of decency would have done at an early stage, certainly if there was genuine remorse.

“A further problem here is that you have led such a double life that no-one knows whether they can trust a word you say.

“Parents have to live with the memory of you coming out with a smile on your face to hand them back their child when in fact you may have been doing unspeakable things to that child; and when you may well have been thinking about sending the disgusting images you had stored on your phone to your partner in this paedophile venture in Manchester.”

He read from a psychiatric report which stated George “derived emotional gratification in a perverse and destructive way”.

(Image: John Allen)

While he noted her clean record he also took into account “the appalling, repetitive and escalating nature of the offending.”

Finally, he emphasised how the minimum term of seven years was not the length of George’s incarceration.

He said: “If the Parole Board is not satisfied it is safe for you to be released then you will spend the rest of your days in prison. Some may say that would be too harsh. Many, and I suspect everyone so deeply affected by your dreadful deeds, will say that would not be a day too long and is no more than you deserve.”

In a rare and final response to the judge’s words, George meekly nodded in agreement.

Angela Allen, who sat beside George throughout, was also handed an indeterminate sentence, with a minimum term of five years, after pleading guilty to four child sex assaults and one count of distributing an indecent image.

Following the hearing senior investigators from both Nottinghamshire Police and Devon and Cornwall Constabulary stated that George and Allen’s crimes were ones “which most ordinary people could never comprehend”.

The joint statement noted neither had been forced to carry out “shocking acts of child abuse.”

George had “abused her position of trust and the families of her victims now have to deal with the effects of her actions for a lifetime.”

At the time, the officers said police “remain committed to identifying those children George abused.”